The Atlanta Dream are in a similar spot to where they were last year at this point in the season. It’s easy to say that, but there’s one important piece of context that can’t be left out in those discussions: expectations.
See, last year, the Dream weren’t picked to finish around seventh in the league by most outlets during the 2025 preseason. But after the season they had last year, finishing No. 1 in the Eastern Conference, the expectations changed and the Dream were picked as the No. 3 best team in the league during the 2026 preseason.
It’s not that the season has been bad for the Dream. No, not at all. They’re playing at a high level, but they are also 8-9 against teams with a winning record.
That put them in an interesting place when it came to evaluating their roster and where they stood at the WNBA trade deadline.
“I’m not going to get into specifics, but as always, we were very active at the deadline. Nothing that came to fruition that we felt was going to enhance our team,” general manager Dan Padover told reporters before Monday’s game against the Toronto Tempo. “This is our squad. We feel really good about it. We think our best basketball is ahead of us, and we’re just looking forward to getting more reps.”
The Dream were, indeed, active at the deadline, but they didn’t pull off any moves. Multiple sources with direct knowledge confirmed that the Dream had discussions around Kelsey Plum before she was traded to the Phoenix Mercury. The same sources also told The IX Sports that the Dream were in lengthy discussions with the New York Liberty around Betnijah Laney-Hamilton.
The Liberty ultimately cut off the conversations due to the offer, which included a second-round pick. Those familiar with the thought process told The IX Sports that the Liberty didn’t feel the return was enough to send Laney-Hamilton to a contender, and instead preferred to waive her and see her land with a team that had the cap room and waiver priority to bring her in, such as Washington, Connecticut, or Los Angeles.
She ended up in Washington.
Those are two pivotal aspects to look at when evaluating the lack of movement at the trade deadline, not just from the Dream, but also from around the league in general.
As of publication, two games separate the teams in fourth place and eighth place in the standings. What’s more, for the Dream specifically, they didn’t have the draft capital that is often needed to swing a deal at the deadline since they traded their 2027 and 2028 first-round picks – as well as a 2028 second-round swap – to the Chicago Sky in the Angel Reese deal.
For Padover, though, he felt that it was something else that limited the moves around the league.
“No, I don’t think that had any effect on it. I think the biggest challenge for our league, from a trade deadline standpoint, is we don’t have as many assets to go around as the NBA does,” Padover explained to The IX Sports. “We have a hard cap, and having just come off of a CBA, a lot of people were signed to multi-year deals, and I think the history of trade deadlines where you see a lot of movement are people on expiring contracts or one-year deals where there’s buyers and sellers.
“I think this year there were very few of those situations. When you already have some constraints, you add on just a few people being on expiring contracts. I think that’s why you only saw one or two trades at the deadline.”
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The deals that Padover mentioned were Plum moving to the Mercury from the Los Angeles Sparks, and Aneesah Morrow getting traded to the Tempo.
The IX Sports can confirm that the Dream were working up until the deadline, having conversations with teams around the league for a potential deal.
“I think if opportunities were there that would enhance our team, we would have, but that didn’t happen,” Padover said. “We’re fortunate enough to have a great, deep roster, and we’re just looking forward to seeing them continue to get better every game.”
It’s hard to argue with part of the analysis from Padover. The Dream had three WNBA All-Stars this year in their starting lineup, and the same three are making a push to land on all-WNBA teams.
Jordin Canada is quietly having one of the best seasons of her career on both sides of the ball, and the Dream just got Brionna Jones back a handful of games ago.
When she returns to the starting lineup, all five Dream starters will have player-exclusive shoes.
They have the star power, for sure.
But a deep roster? That’s the part that is fair to question.
And it’s the part of the equation that the team was looking to solve at the deadline.
Take, for instance, the Dream’s most-recent win against the Tempo. Six players – the five starters plus Jones – scored 103 of the team’s 107 points.
The other four were scored by Isobel Borlase.
There was a game earlier this season where the bench had zero points in a game for the 35th time in WNBA history.
The Dream rely on their starters more than any other team in the league. Their starters play an average of 31.4 minutes per game, leading the league. Juxtapose that with Golden State, whose starters play 24.2 minutes per game due to the depth that they have.
There’s a chance for the Dream to get a rest for a few of their players, at least, with the FIBA World Cup coming up in early September. Two of their starters – Rhyne Howard and Angel Reese, No. 1 and 21 in minutes per game, respectively – will be participating in the event for Team USA.
“It’s something you have to consider as we get closer to that break, knowing that they’re gonna be travelling and playing all those games,” Smesko told The IX Sports. “So, any chance that we can, I would think within the 10 days going into that, hopefully, we’re in a position where we can buy them a little bit more time, so that they don’t feel like they’re going into the cup all worn out. So I think it’s something that we definitely have to think about.”
Smesko added that while it would be ideal to get his starters some rest, the crowded positioning of the eight playoff teams makes that challenging over the last quarter of the season.
“Let’s be honest. Like between four and eight, it’s really close. It’s within a game, game and a half. You could be fourth at the beginning of the night and eighth at the end of the night on any given night,” Smesko told The IX Sports. “You want to make sure that you’re winning games, but at the same time, you also want to make sure that you’re managing some of the heavy minute loads. You also want them to be prepared for heavy minutes in the playoffs, so you don’t want that to be a shock when that comes. There’s a lot to factor in for sure.”
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It’s easy – and fair – to criticize the usage of the starters, but when you see them clicking the way that they did against Toronto, you can see the vision and the ceiling that the Dream have.
“It looks a little like today. I think just you know being able to score inside and outside, getting stops on defense,” Jones told reporters about what the Dream’s best basketball looks like when it’s all clicking. “The more times we can put that together for a full 40 minutes, the better we’re going to be. And I think, like Dan said, our best basketball is still ahead of us.”
In order to reach that point, they’ll continue to need better play from their bench – including Te-Hina Paopao when she returns from an injury, and their two rookies, Borlase and Madina Okot.
Without the aforementioned picks over the next two WNBA Drafts, having players like Okot and Borlase produce now while setting the team up for the future is a needle that needs to be carefully threaded.
“For 21- and 22-year-old rookies, especially when you look at the people that have been put in that position historically, they’ve got a lot of good opportunities,” Padover said of Okot and Borlase. “They’re also able to learn from some phenomenal players. Medina learning from Bri Jones. Izzy learning from Allisha Gray and Rhyne Howard. The situation that both of them are in couldn’t be better.
“But like both of them are just such critical long-term pieces to make this thing work. And I think you know the most challenging thing in basketball and team building is evaluating the now and evaluating the future. You always want to win right now, but you also need that second guard to come in and continue to carry your franchise forward. And we think both of those can be two key pieces in that.”
The team breaks each huddle with one team, one Dream. It’s a group of players that are close and lift each other up.
Hell, Smesko has worn a Barbie shirt and Allisha Gray goggles over the last week at home games in support of his players, despite saying he’d “wear an Iron Maiden shirt if it was left up to him.”
It’s a group that supports each other, so they are bought into what Padover is saying with their best basketball being ahead of them yet.
“Yeah, I think just like the ability for everybody to come in and just really embrace one another. Like you all see a lot of familiar faces, but we have a lot of new faces here too, and I think every season is different.”
“We started this year off just embracing one another and trying to learn from each other. ‘Hey, what do you do well?’ ‘What do you not?’” Padover explained. “Our ability just to be open to learning from one another and knowing that we all need each other to get to where we want to get to.”
Where they want to get to is a championship. There’s another upcoming deadline that isn’t discussed as much, which takes place on Aug. 24th. If a player is waived after that date, a team can claim the player, but they won’t be eligible for the playoff roster. Note that this is only for players who are waived and not other players like free agents or developmental players.
Like with the trade deadline, Padover’s phone is on.
“Obviously, we’re evaluating our current team, and evaluating what’s out there in the league,” Padover told The IX Sports. “But you know, the bulk of our crew is here. But any pieces that we can add, we will.”
